AF Bombay invites you to an interactive session with French author Marie Saglio on her book – Bombay. The event will be moderated by Mr. Laurent Vergain, Director – AF Bombay, followed by a reading from the novel by Mr. Nachiket Joshi & Ms. Nandita Wagle.

Please note that the event will be French.

7 November
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
AF Bombay Auditorium, Churchgate

Marie Saglio (Marie-Caroline Saglio-Yatzimirsky) was born in Paris in 1969. She has taught the anthropology of contemporary India since 1998 at Inalco (Paris). She is a specialist in social exclusion, slums in India and Brazil and migration issues. She has also been a clinical psychologist working with exiled populations in the psycho-trauma consultation of the Avicenne hospital (Bobigny) since 2010. She is also the author of several essays including the most recent: The voice of those who cry, encounter with asylum seekers (Albin Michel, 2018). Bombay is her first novel.

Shiv works in London for a waste recycling company. His superiors send him to Bombay, his native country, for a major mission. Shiv finds, near the slum of Grandapur, the bungalow Bheeramal Mansion – where his adoptive mother Shantiji and her family live -, as well as his best friend, Lenin, a homosexual in struggle and brother of Laleh, his great love from whom he had to separate and who still haunts him. Shiv discovers a country under tension and witnesses clashes between Hindus and Muslims, rich and poor, corrupt and honest people, supporters of tradition and progress. A multiple India, full of secrets, confronted with ecological and humanitarian disasters. Swindles, poisonings, even murders, and many obstacles make his mission almost impossible. He narrowly escapes being assassinated, or even dying in a horrible accident. Desperate after the fire at the dump, Shiv decides to return to London. But in the meantime he makes new discoveries.